


[legion beaucoup]

by ProwlingThunder



Series: you didn't die this year (I guess that's good enough) [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Big Brothers, Family Feels, Gen, Ghosts, magitek troopers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 07:51:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21175961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: Prompto doesn’t know when it started; for him, it has simply always been. But in truth it started the day he was born, and it never stopped.





	[legion beaucoup]

**Author's Note:**

> Legion  
*1: the principal unit of the Roman army comprising 3000 to 6000 foot soldiers with cavalry  
2: a large military force  
3: a very large number  
4: a national association of ex-servicemen  
Beaucoup  
*slang: great in quantity or amount
> 
> Also, happy birthday Prom!

37816173 discovers him first. N-iE14134 37816173 had been an infantry scout, assigned to patrol the area surrounding the lab. 37816173 doesn’t remember how it became nonfunctional; the mountains are cold and dangerous and not particularly bad, tactically, except for all the loose snow, loose rock, and many caverns. And frozen lakes. Lots of frozen lakes.

37816173 calculates a lake above all else; probability says it is most likely. 

37816173 is cold and in need of maintenance, so it returns to the labs. When no one collects it for repair, subroutines demand self-maintenance, so it begins the hunt for tools and spare parts and finds itself in an empty lab.

Well, mostly empty. There is a berth that is not, though it is small. When it investigates, perfunctorily looking for tools, it finds a small, _ alien _ looking creature sleeping inside. It looks like a human, but it is much, much too small, the proportions are wrong. 37816173 knows how proportions are to be calculated, is programmed that proportional errors are to be registered and exploited in a combat situation, a momentary assessment concludes this is not a combat situation. Further assessment concludes the creature must be a human, when no other limb and proportion arrangement comes close to matching it. 37816173 does not know what juvenile humans look like, but has noticed young wildlife to be different from old wildlife in terms of size and color. It is the highest probability.

The assessment ticks off logic trees in its processors. Magitek troopers are not permitted in areas where humans sleep. 37816173 nearly begins its retreat when the small grasping limb touches the glass of the berth, and it realizes it is being watched. Magitek troopers are not permitted to move without human orders unless there are previous instructions in existance or combat is engaged via registering enemy troop movement. 37816173 is in need of repair and does not have previous instructions, so 37816173 goes nowhere.

Nowhere until a human with shorn hair does something to the berth and lifts its human out, stating expletives 37816173 has registered before but does not have context for, wrapping the human in its coat and growling, _ “Let’s get out of here.” _

37816173 has no way of registering if these orders are instructions for it. But 37816173 has been standing guard over the human in this berth for a long time, even as it slept, and it has not been ordered not to guard the human, so it follows.

N-iM00917 73434855 is second. It needs repair after a brief combat engagement with an enemy weapon and subsequent shut-down, but it registers both a human and another MT, an N-iE model in escort mode. Which is curious, because N-iE models do not have escort modes, according to 73434855’s stratagem modules, but 73434855 is an N-iM00917 model, an early model, and has not been upgraded since the release of the N-iM01000. Perhaps later models of N-iE contain escort mode.

But 73434855 does have escort mode. It triggers automatically. It falls into step behind the N-iE model and does not question what they are escorting until later, when the human the N-iE was with takes off its chassis and a smaller something emerges. 73434855 does not have any logic trees to figure out what it is. 73434855 does not have color recognition software. What it is is irrelevant when it reaches out to it, touches at 73434855’s armor as the human turns the thing around.

73434855 does not know what it is. Escort mode does not toggle off.

The Argentums adopt him when he is two, and if they think anything of it when he babbles at empty corners and open air, they remember children have imaginary friends. While he is not ahead on all his milestones, he is not far behind; the Crownsguard who handled their case warned that he had come from a difficult situation and may take time to settle in. That he vocalizes and stumbles to open spaces is something of a relief, and when the Crownsguard check in to see how the family is settling in, he declares they are doing remarkably well and to let him know if anything out of the ordinary happens.

They don’t, of course, because he is simply an ordinary child. There’s nothing extraordinary about him.

Prompto starts school when he’s nearly six, because officially his birthday is in late October, on the first day his mom and dad held him in their arms. He really doesn’t want to go; for all his cheerfulness, Prompto isn’t _ really _ much of a people person, but his parents assure him he’ll make friends easily as long as he’s himself.

Of course, just before school begins he wakes up with a horrific fever, and spends the entire first week out with the flu. By the time he has his first day, the classroom has settled into tiny little social groups that he does not fit into.

On the other hand, not having to worry about friends means he can focus on the _ material, _ and Prompto is actually _ really good _ at that. He loves learning about maths and sciences, and he only missed the one week, so the course work hasn’t gone very far and he catches up quickly.

Mom had wanted to walk him home after school, but having missed a week tending to him, she has to work late, so Prompto walks home sheltered between 37 and 73.

37 and 73 have been there as long as he can remember. Some kids have teddy bears and safety blankets; Prompto has two people who’s wrists match his own, store barcode and letters and numbers. Mom and Dad gave him a wristband with his favorite racer’s colors on it, but sometimes he peeks under it just to make sure the mark is still there.

37 and 73 have longer numbers, and Prompto learned his numbers very early, but the numbers are so long and they haven’t told him what else to call them.

Mom and Dad don’t talk to them, but Prompto does. It’s 37 and 73 who’ve always chased away bad dreams, and kept him safe when the dark came closing in, too tight and suffocating.

When the teacher asks the class to draw their family, he adds them, too, like he sees them; mom and dad on one side of him, and 37 and 73 on the other.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompto’s numbers are: N-iP01357 (model number) and 05953234 (production number). While infants have a 4-digit production year and an 8-digit production code, troopers have a 5-digit model number and an 8-digit production number. This implies Prom was always scheduled to be a MT.
> 
> Special Thanks: [RNG](https://numbergenerator.org/random-5-digit-number-generator#!numbers=4&length=5) /[ Calculator Words ](http://blog.presentandcorrect.com/250-words-you-can-spell-with-a-calculator) / [L33T SP34K CH34T SH33T ](http://www.gamehouse.com/blog/leet-speak-cheat-sheet/)


End file.
